With the advent of the DVD in conjunction with the Internet, systems have been developed that attempt to synchronize the video content from a DVD-Video with HyperText Markup Language (HTML) text from the Internet. One application of such a system, which can be displayed on a computer monitor or a television screen, could be a movie being displayed from the DVD-Video, while an Internet browser application displays HTML text, which could include subtitles or background information related to the movie.
One example of such a system is the WebDVD system by MICROSOFT®. FIG. 1 illustrates a monitor screen of a WebDVD system. In particular, FIG. 1 illustrates computer monitor screen 100 that includes DVD screen 104 and Internet browser screen 106. Additionally, computer monitor screen 100 is attached to a computer (not shown), which includes a DVD drive (not shown). In addition to video content, a DVD-Video includes text sections for different usages. The WebDVD system inserts Uniform Resource Locator (URL) addresses associated with different web content located on the Internet into these text sections of a particular DVD-Video. In operation, the DVD drive displays the video content located thereon onto DVD screen 104. Moreover, when the DVD disc drive encounters a URL address, the drive transmits this address to an Internet browser application running on the computer. Subsequently, the Internet browser application retrieves the HTML text associated with this URL address and displays such content in Internet browser screen 106.
However, such systems suffer from limitations. One such limitation is the lack of a tight integration between the video content from the DVD-Video and the HTML content from the Internet, due in part to the design of a DVD-Video, as the number of text sections to place the URL addresses therein on a given DVD-Video is limited. Accordingly, updates to Internet browser screen 106 may not be able to occur as frequently as some applications need or desire.
Moreover, such systems lack a full integration between the video content from the DVD-Video and the HTML content from the Internet. In particular as illustrated in FIG. 1, computer monitor screen 100 includes two separate windows to display the video content and the HTML content.
A further limitation in such a system is that the URL address is burnt onto the DVD-Video, thereby precluding any dynamic modification of such addresses. Therefore if a given URL address stored on the DVD-Video needs to be modified, a new DVD-Video must be created to include this modification. Accordingly, these types of modifications can be costly and time-consuming.
In another system that synchronizes video content from a DVD-Video with HTML text, the sector numbers of the DVD-Video are employed to provide for such synchronization. In such a system, numbers of the sectors containing the video content of the DVD-Video are associated with certain HTML text. Accordingly, video is displayed such that when certain sectors of the DVD-Video are played by the DVD drive, HTML text is displayed in a separate window for the number for the given sector. However, such a system also suffers from certain limitations. One such limitation is due in part to the modification of the sector locations on a DVD-Video each time a DVD-Video is burnt. Accordingly, the association between the sector numbers and the HTML text needs to be modified each time a DVD-Video is created.